Summer Plan

On the heels of seeing Seven Brides for Seven Brothers on the big screen, I have decided that for the summer, I would write blog entries about musicals.  I want to cover both the tentpole musicals and the less-known ones.  And I want to think a little bit how the movie musical has changed over the years.  So here's to a song and dance filled summer!

What I learned...

I saw one of my favorite movies on the big screen (at the AFI Silver naturally): Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  And so naturally, here is a bulleted list of what I learned watching it on the big screen:

• Really, no man should have a beard.  If you must have a beard, you must have a beard, you better maintain that beard and not let it become straggly looking (this was also influenced by seeing a Nationals player with a beard that looked like he did not have a razor, a mirror, or reflective surface). 
• Millie somehow managed to do the work of about 12 women.  She washed the dirty clothing of 6 men in the space probably 2 hours.  And she made them breakfast. 
• The gender politics in this movie are kind of terrible.  The "brides" are kidnapped and treated like objects for a large chunk of the movie.  However, Millie takes no shit from anyone.  
• The shirts Millie makes the brothers are basically amazing.  
• I had a lot of questions of about the supplies availble to Millie when she was up in the mountains.  She must have gone through so much flour and yeast, or if not yeast than baking powder.  She makes a lot of biscuits.  
• The amount of effort that Jeff Richards (Benjamin) put into his dancing, it is like a minus effort because he slide-lined Julie Newmar, who was trained as a ballerina.  
• Finally, after the number of times that I have seen this movie (at least 50), I can confidently tell you the couples.  
• In this scene below, the sound that is made when Epharim, Daniel, Frank, and Caleb slide under the two boards is glorious in surround sound: 
• I super love this movie.  I was smiling for about 80% of the entire movie.